


Warm Wishes

by Val_Creative



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Canon - Book & TV Combination, Canon - TV, Daemons, Emotions, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Good Parent Lord Asriel (HDM), Injury Recovery, Introspection, Jordan College (HDM), Lyra Knows Lord Asriel Is Lyra's Father, Lyra's World (His Dark Materials), Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Snow and Ice, Winter, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: She understands why Lyra has her stubbornly curious disposition. Asriel never quite grew out of it as a boy either.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua, Lyra Belacqua & Pantalaimon, Stelmaria & Lord Asriel
Comments: 14
Kudos: 112





	Warm Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> ANOTHER SATURDAY, ANOTHER DADRIEL. I don't have an obsession. Nope. 😭🤣 We are so close to the end of S1. I'm not ready. I'll probably do more fics before Episode 8 and afterwards but yes HELLO AGAIN MY DADRIEL PEEPS. I do hope you enjoy this one and any thoughts/comments I always love to hear! 💟💟💟💟💟

*

There's rarely a sight so magnificent to a child than the natural wonders.

During the bitterest cold seasons, everything turns into a glittering, crystalline spectacle. From the highest tops of the dark flagstone columns, to the wood-planked carts, to the orchard fruit left hanging and ripened to its sweetest essence. Their skins filigreed in pearly ice-crust.

She understands why Lyra has her stubbornly curious disposition. Asriel never quite grew out of it as a boy either.

From outside the iron-and-glass bedroom window, hundreds and hundreds of starlings roost themselves within the Library Garden's treetops. Nightfall breaks, and they all rise up like thick, living smoke, hovering and blackening the grey-mist skies. Stelmaria can see it where she arranges herself.

Asriel hasn't woken entirely, lingering on the cusp of a dreamless dark.

The side of his face presses into the thin, unremarkable cot in an unremarkable room scented of musty fabrics and green nectar wine. He tossed the pillows onto the floor before resting, grumbling. An odour of _dog_ — wet and foul — emits from them. Asriel sleeps like the dead, unmoved, curled up as if trying to protect himself. He never has to.

Stelmaria rests with him, her muscular, silvery form lying down against his front, her enormous paws tucking in. With all of her strength, she could crush a field mouse. Tear apart one of those starling or an barn owl or even a tortoise. Rip open hot, fleshy entrails with each of her sharp claws protruding out. Devour any wild game or enemy whom she chooses. But that's not Stelmaria's concern at the moment.

There's been nights of poor health or mind, for Asriel himself. Not so frequent. Regardless, she waits for him to fall asleep, leaping onto his bedding and nestling in, dropping her snow leopard's head to Asriel's neck, over his ear. Rumbling low, soothing purrs.

So many perished in the Great Flood. Asriel did all he could, as a lord, as a fellow Oxford man and able body.

As a _parent_.

He never asked for a child, and yet, the responsibility was Asriel's own after Marisa Coulter left Lyra out of her interests. Stelmaria doubts he would ever admit it, but… Asriel thrived greatly in his pride for Lyra. Her resourcefulness. Her brilliant, clever instincts. Her relation to him. She was _his_ … his blood, his life's purpose in some ways… and Asriel would have ruptured existence, the whole world, anew for her. For all of them if he had to.

Leaving his infant daughter at Jordan College, right in the midst of his exhaustion and dismay and regret in the Great Flood… it left him vulnerable.

More vulnerable that Stelmaria ever witnessed between them.

Asriel landed the gyrocopter then, setting it ablaze so no trace would be left and found himself wandering into old abandoned inn, drinking the sherry and vodka and gin bottles, flopping onto a mud-stained chaise, breathing out Stelmaria's name woefully until she nuzzled a cheek to his. Stelmaria felt every inch of grief he needed to bury and told Asriel that she too despaired about Lyra and about the fierce, tiny Pantalaimon.

He never consumed a drop of liquor after that. For many years. (Lest it was Tokay — a bittersweet, golden wine. Asriel's favourite).

Stelmaria loves him. He does not ask of this, but he needs it. As every human and daemon _needs_ each other. Asriel however is a man of ambition and profound honesty when decided and of very few words unless they were important. She will not apologise either.

From the entrance-way to the room adjacent, Stelmaria glimpses Lyra, eleven years into her life, hobbling towards a frosted, sunlit window.

Lyra creeps as quietly as possible, wincing visibly as her right foot steps forward. There's no hiding the bandages wound tight, peeking underneath Lyra's sheepskin, dyed sock. Pantalaimon, as a familiar, dark brown moth, flutters over Lyra's head, murmuring. He does not account for Stelmaria to hear him perfectly.

She doesn't shift herself from Asriel, keeping him warm in a drafty, dingy bedroom that belongs to no-one, or her head from weighing down gently on her human's temple. And as soon as Stelmaria blinks, Asriel's steel-blue eyes blink open as well.

He shifts up, allowing Stelmaria to move herself.

She watches, yowl-yawning, her whiskers twitching and jaws widening open as Asriel grabs Lyra from behind, pulling her away.

Lyra screeches and struggles, yelling out loud, exploitative words, carried into this bedroom. Asriel silently dumps her onto the cot. His snow leopard daemon jumps elegantly, making herself cozy on a rug, stretching out and flattening on her belly. Best to remain out of the way.

He forcibly moves Lyra's right leg towards him as a stern-faced Asriel sits down in front of Lyra, yanking open her boot-laces and easing the item off without further harm. He eyes her glare. The redness of humiliation traveling and flushing up to Lyra's earlobes and her forehead. If she bolts, there will be verbal consequences to follow. Lyra's sock peels from her foot with Asriel's careful fingers.

Pantalaimon lands on Lyra's shoulder, as a bluebird, chirping nervously. His little talons sink into her corduroy, peach-dyed attire. Stelmaria growl-purrs to him, as if insisting his apprehension is unnecessary, and he quiets down.

"Keep still…"

" _Hurts_ …" Lyra whines, squinting in distrust.

Asriel's hands examine her, unraveling the bandage to her right ankle. The swelling from Lyra's ankle appears puffier, worsened since the forty-eight hours she injured herself. Probably due to gallivanting around on it when Asriel wasn't there to interfere. A torn ligament? He clucks his tongue in disapproval, standing up for the tin of bandages and medicinal ointments in a nearby, leathered satchel.

"Not enough to pain you if you're sneaking onto an icy rooftop at first light—is that it?"

Despite his harsh tone, Asriel only looks flatly contemplative. He props Lyra's bare foot in his lap, slathering his fingertips with ointment. Lyra's glare hardens, filling with strain as his hand massages the greasy, shine-bright fluid over her injured ankle.

"Do you understand how foolish you're behaving?"

"You're going to tell me—so get on with it—" Lyra whispers, looking away and raising her eyebrows up mockingly.

Stelmaria's ears twitch down. She flashes her fangs, letting out a hiss as a warning.

Asriel's dry fingers grip onto Lyra's chin, turning her. Their noses almost brushing. " _Lyra_ —" Asriel's voice says hoarsely, and she frowns, because Lyra understands she's being difficult and that children were often difficult to their fathers. Or so Stelmaria recognises. Lyra hadn't meant to trip while outracing a gaggle of the servant's children, and certainly not meant to fall off the unbanistered stone staircase.

Lyra meets those steel-blue eyes with a faint challenge before realising how old Asriel truly looks. Pinched age-lines. Scatters of greying-white hairs on Asriel's jowl and within his thinning, brown hair. He's tired. Lyra didn't know he could look so _tired_.

"— _m'srry, Father_ ," she interrupts, Lyra's frown vanishing.

Pantalaimon transforms into a bumblebee as Lyra speaks, droning. He approaches Stelmaria who observes him guardedly but attentive, stretching up her face. She gives a mewling chirp, as Pantalaimon bumps affectionately to Stelmaria's wet nose.

Asriel's hand lowers. He doesn't bother, finishing up the process of re-bandaging Lyra's ankle in mutual hush. But as Asriel climbs to his feet with the opened wedge of a tin, his lips part. Stelmaria mostly can identify the _emotion_ rather than the words behind what Asriel mumbles to his daughter, swishing her tail.

_Love._

A kind that grieves and terrifies and builds life anew in radiance.

*

Deep winter. More snowfall than yesterday.

It might be heresy — if not for Scholastic Sanctuary — but Jordan College invests its current affairs in the feast of Yule. Most of the preparations dealt with and funded by several of the more eager, privileged Scholars, overseen by the Cassington Scholar.

All of them contend for their right to educate the others living among them on the grounds and deepen their studies.

Yule used to be what they practised under the faithful eye of The Magisterium, they inform Asriel ducking away, bleary-eyed. Long before they devouted themselves wholly to the side of their religious, strict worship. It was a time of _joy_ and _prosperity_ and _friendship_.

(The Magisterium, so far, choses to ignore them on the matter. There's more urgent and delicate matters that Asriel is sure they would rather focus on presently. Like ensnaring and corrupting little children in body and mind. He shudders.)

Stelmaria glimpses Asriel staring in mild bemusement as two of the Scholars argue about the ceremonial Yule log.

Whether it should be ash… if it should be gifted to The Master of Jordan College or placed in one of the Great Halls' fireplaces… if it required this seasonal greenery or to be doused with cider and dusted with flour… and if the remaining piece of the last year's Yule log should be burned with it… if this sizeable piece of wood would burn throughout the night, and then left to smolder for a week…

Mercy be… at least there's no caroling.

*

She catches the intense, tingly aroma of clove-spiked apples and oranges.

They're laid out on the rows of dining tables in baskets of evergreen boughs and wheat stalks powdered with flour. Herself and Asriel (to their inconvenience) are subjected to the long-winded history, courtesy of more pompous Scholars, of evergreen being a sign of immortality and the apples and oranges portraying the sun. The crisp dried wheat stalks represent their harvest-tide, and the flour light and life.

Ivy hangs high above the archways, signaling their good fortune. Asriel dutifully keeps from passing under the springs of lush, green mistletoe, as the occasional Scholar and scullery-maid gleefully watch him, licking their lips. Stelmaria bristles, tensing up.

But especially why Jordan College celebrates its Yule… is the matter of _gift-giving_.

Lyra has been given expensive and yet practical gifts since she was no more a babe. Heaps of new stockings and dresses… ornate hairbrushes with gilded, carved handles she won't use… heavy tomes of significant female personages she will lose interest in… knitting needles and yarn that Asriel guesses she would rather play-fight with, imagining her enemy by stabbing the air…

Stelmaria wonders if her human might nudge her to whisper Pantalaimon, to discover what Lyra wants the most, but no…

(That has never been how Asriel — _Lord Asriel_ — goes in his way.)

She lingers expectantly behind Asriel, walking into the mid-day meal, ash he greets Lyra narrowing her eyes inquisitively.

Lyra has been washed and combed and garbed in a quilted, button-up dress in emerald. Her silken undershirt peeking out as red as bloodstones. A fresh cut of holly with a gleaming, silvery-white ribbon threaded, pinned in Lyra's dark hair. There's fruits, nuts, slices of pork and turkey, as well as cinnamon-flavoured chocolat and eggnog and ginger tea left out on the worn dining trays. Lyra has her own glass of water and a plate of roasted apple as a dessert, cooked in ale, and rolled excessively with sugar and nutmeg.

Pantalaimon scurries away as an ermine, immediately bashful with Stelmaria gazing to him intently and mewling in acknowledgement. He retreats into Lyra's hands, burrowing himself, as she clutches him to her front and smiles fondly.

"Come… I have something for you," Asriel orders.

He doesn't give anything away, helping Lyra from her chair as she grimaces and limps to him. Without hesitating, Asriel sweeps a confused Lyra into his arms, strolling them out of the room much to the blatant and secretive amusement of Jordan College's residents. As a mouse, Pantalaimon hides into Lyra's front pocket, also confused as to where they are all going.

There's a scent of pine and bayberry on the wind. Yellow cedar saplings. Stelmaria leads out of the quad, until they've reached a dog-led sledge festooned in laurel and silver bells and massive red bows. The dogs pay her no mind. She's no more than _Asriel himself_ to them.

Lyra gasps in pure and open-mouthed delight. She waits to be seated by Asriel before nearly jolting over to grab the reins.

Asriel shucks off his jacket, leaving himself in his double-layered sweater and wrapping her up, pulling out a woolen muffler and a stitched, woolen cap from his jacket's pocket for Lyra. "An hour," he tells her, leaning over. "No more than this." And, of course, Asriel is entirely unprepared for Lyra springing up, hugging him round the neck and kissing his jaw childishly.

Stelmaria chuff-laughs. Her human falters while Lyra squirms and asks when they can leave, dazed by the rush of familial, inherently warm emotions, before recovering. His face may be chapped pink from the weather — for all she knows.

Truly what Stelmaria does know is the familiar pounding of her legs on the glittering, endless ice. How the misty sun disappears on the horizon. The sledge crunching fast through diamond-clear snow. Lyra's screams of exhilaration, her _joy_. Pan flying aside Stelmaria as a nameless, wild hawk, screeching into the air as Lyra screeched once but full of wonder. Stelmaria knows Asriel's happiness.

Because it's the _same_ as hers.

*


End file.
